The Important Things(a poem)
The second best part of fucking her was the way her scent would leak into my skin and stay with me the rest of the dayā¦Itās been five years but I remember every line on her hand and every freckle on her nose and every direction the muscles on her thighs moved when I pressed my fingers against them, pressing until she moaned and until she whispered those magic words over and over againā¦Iām yours, she saysā¦Iām yours, yours, yoursā¦I remember exactly how her teeth felt, carving into my lower lip as Iād pull back slightly while we kissed, my skin stretched and clasped and punctured from the sharp edges of bone she brushed and flossed four times a dayā¦
when I was seventeen me and Harriet would do coke off the black hardcover book of Edgar Allen Poeās complete works and wonder to one another if Kurt Cobain really killed himself or if Courtney had him killedā¦the blow came from this 27 year old bartender my 19 year old sister was sleeping with while her boyfriend was in Ecuador for a year doing missionary workā¦Harriet was super cute and her tits were nice and she had these handcuffs she found in her auntās bedroom and stole one afternoon and she would let me lock her up wherever I wanted too and do what I wanted which usually ended up being whatever I saw happening in the porno movies we always watched why we were doing it and when we werenāt doing itā¦me and her, we watched a lot of porn together that springā¦the summer before, after Harrietās grandma died and her mom and dad separated and she all of the sudden hated being around either of them as they tried peeling away those twenty years of comfort and normal with trendy haircuts just like the ones made famous by primetime sitcom stars and gender friendly social clubs that convened one night a week with vague dreams of inflatable passion and a second chance at doing something so interesting that someone might ask them about it one day or acquaintances from town might talk about it without them being presentā¦on the hottest day in four years in the middle of that August, stuck on her fatherās farm and unable to get a hold of me to drive to her and save her from a kind of fierce boredom which only blossomās that ugly in the middle of nowhere, years before the internet and during a time when satellite cable dishes were just starting to surface in places still too rural for paved roads, Harriet tried to order a pair of silk pajamas and the red nighty Nikki Taylor was barely wearing from Victoria Secrets over the phone but the voice on the other end hung up after Harriet finally admitted she only had a two dollar bill and a Bazooka Joe comic strip in the pocket of a pair of shorts that were in a duffel bag in her fatherās car so she threw a rock from the driveway as hard as she could at the television in the kitchen then drank a fifth of Southern Comfort as she listened to Pulp on her headphones and cut her wrists after lighting a hundred candles in the bathroomā¦
Even though I can remember the specific places on her back that would make her gasp and her body dance when my fingers crossed them, tracing her sweet, honey skin while we laid in her bed after fucking and even though I can remember exactly how hard and far inside of her pussy to slide my fingers to make her eyes roll all the way back inside her head, I couldnāt tell you her middle name if you asked me and I donāt remember the names of her brothers or sisters or where she was born since it was different than where she moved here fromā¦Iām scared of getting to a place where dinner out becomes something planned, something we only do on Saturday night, Iām scared of existing in a place where long bouts of silence fill the space between questions about how our days were and a story about the copy machine at workā¦What is it about us that makes us seek our eventual misery, that makes us chase our own confinementā¦What is it about us that thatās so eager to stop exploring and discovering and experiencingā¦
When Harriet was 20, she called me and told me she was pregnant, she told me she didnāt know what to do, she told me she loved the guy who banged her into motherhoodā¦Heād once been a star football player in high school who dreamed of fall Saturdayās in a stadium and 70,000 people cheering for himā¦His last dreamsā¦The one that never came trueā¦Harriet once dreamed of California and London, she once dreamed of being so far away from home that sheād forget she ever lived thereā¦
On Facebook and Twitter, the details of the new war are plastered all over my timelinesā¦Blistering words that drip with anger as me and the rest of their friends are treated to a front row seat of the 21st Centuries new theater-the social media breakup-I watch all this so-called stability and security unravel into a lose thread of deceit, days without any passion, late nights with a missing person, and the confirmation that the last few years were nothing more than a huge mistakeā¦instead of I love you, itās youāre a whore, itās youāre a motherfucker, itās you donāt fuck me anymore, and itās you guys were right the whole timeā¦When she walked out of my door that last time five years ago, I felt alright about everything, I even felt reliefā¦In my mouth was the final strand of her hair that would ever get stuck in itā¦I tasted it then slowly pulled it out and inhaled her scent a final timeā¦Itās better this way, it really isā¦Iād rather miss you than hate you, Iād rather remember the laughing and fucking than the lying and the screamingā¦
A year ago, on Harrietās daughterās 12th birthday, she told me she wouldnāt do anything differently, she said she wouldnāt trade this life for any other lifeā¦I didnāt believe her but I understood thatās what youāre supposed to say, I understand the willingness to accept when the only other option is miseryā¦And I hung up the phone and grabbed a beer from the fridge and walked out on my back deck just in time to watch the sun set beneath the golden gate bridgeā¦
The first best thing about fucking her was how present we both were, how we were both there and only there, and we communicated perfectly and we made sure we took care of each otherās wants and needsā¦Itās the important stuff that I always remember cos those are the things that lead to both of us being happy, the only thing that will ever fucking matterā¦The only thing thatās worth a goddamn thing when itās all said and done and weāve all moved onā¦










